Jennifer's page


1-15-08
Journal 1.1
In the past you have probably never paid attention to whether or not you were appealing to your readers' logic, emotion, or character. Go back and think of times when you have written and have done so. Do you have an idea of how to appeal to your reader? What of these three appeals will you need to work on the most? Are you good at giving examples? Are you pretty logical? Do you know how to sound like a good, moral person? Spend some time writing about these three appeals and how you perhaps compare to the author you are analyzing and how you measure up and what you need to work on.
In the past I really never did pay attention to whether or not I was appealing to my readers' logic, emotion, or character. In fact I never really paid attention to anything in my writing; I would have to say I wasn't a very good writer. I have tried to appeal to my readers emotions before by providing personal examples that they might feel sad about. Such as when I wrote about the time my sister had a seizure and I was the first one to find it happening. I described everything that happened and how helpless I felt, it was really sad and someone just reading about it might think the same. I mean me being about 15 finding my sister on the ground not knowing what was going on; that she could have died... that was very scary.
When I write I try to catch the reader's attention, I personally don't think that it happens a lot, but at least I try. I've been told that the first sentence is the one that you should make the most interesting to catch your readers attention. I try to keep my paper pretty logical, but I am not exactly sure if I do that right as well. Character is something I need to work on, I'm not exactly sure how to write it with character, I think it just happens automatically. So I think I really need to work on finding out if I was using all three appeals. I think that I may tend to have them in my writing due to habit, but I need to know how to distinguish what is what.
I like to think that I sound like a good moral person, but that doesn't tend to work all the time too. I can get pretty opinionated in my papers causing it to be bad. I just think I need to really work on how I write my papers and how to distinguish what is in them. I don't really know how to compare my writing to the author of my paper I have. I'm not sure which steps to go through to determine if mine is as well written as his, or if it is just crap.

1-20-08

"Should English be the offical language in the USA?"
Should English be the offical language in the USA?
by: S. Blake

S. Blake feels that English should be the offical language in the USA. At first the author talks about what is going to be done to stop people from coming illegally in this country, but then they go on to say they don't want to hear another word about being another language. They can't understand why someone even made the initial question to begin with. They don't really agree with having to work in order to live and how other people can just come here and not work at learning our language. Then they go to talk about how they love the melting pot here, but they don't like when people from other countries live here and get our tax dollars when they can't even speak the English. If they went to another country to live, they feel that they would have to learn the language of the country, as if it were being forced upon them, yet why don't they do that in the USA. Then they say that they don't mind if other languages are spoken here but other people should respect the country enough to learn their language as well. Eventually it leads into the author asking questions about what happens if English becomes the offical language of the US. The author is very proud to be an American and wants everyone to speak their language and not force their kids to learn Spanish in order to graduate or get a job. Overall Blake is really against other languages if the person speaking them doesn't know perfect English as well. Blake wants English to be our official language.
It seems like the writer is a little too opinionated, when they are writing they try to get other sides in, but it just turns back into opinion. Such as, "I am not going to say that I don't want citizens from other Countries living here, in fact I love the melting pot that turned out to be America. What I don't love is someone liveing in MY native land, getting MY tax dollars that I work so hard for, and getting government perks that I could only dream about, without borthering to learn English." (pg 1. Blake) The author starts off trying to pull in the fact that they don't hate people just because they are foreigners, but right after they go to talk about what they hate about them.
I think that the audience would be someone that was for other languages being spoken in the US. As if the author was trying to persuade them to see it their way on why English should be the only language.
There isn't any real reason or logic in this piece of writing, sure maybe for the author, but they don't give the other side of it. There is a quite a bit of pathos, they show that they really do not want another language the official language of the US. Blake gives and example of not wanting their children to be forced to learn a language to be able to graduate or get a job. "And my children better never be 'forced' by my country to have to learn Spanish in order to graduate high school or get a job in AMERICA! This is America, we speak English here, not Spanish." Also it gets quite amuzing at the end when they say "Somebody better check Dora the explorer for her green card."

Jennie Wegner
1-24-08
Wendt/Eng 101.13
Paper 1
First Draft

English: the Official Language
I agree with S. Blake saying that English should be the official language of the USA. I don’t agree with Newt Gingrich saying that we should only have English, which later he says he didn’t mean like that, and he doesn’t mind having other languages. I don’t think that English should be the only language, but I feel that it should at least be the official language. It’s ok to know more than one language, as long as you know English as well. When you go to other countries you are going to want to know other languages so that you can talk to people in their native language so you don’t feel so left out. I feel that people visiting the United States should at least know some Basic English so that they can communicate.
I understand that we have to go to school and take foreign language which shouldn’t be such a big deal. It is always better to know more than one language so if you run into a situation where you need to be a translator you will be able to do that. Sure if English was the official language of the U.S. then more people would learn English, but is that really going to change anything? I mean some people will do it, but I think most people that want and need to learn English are already trying to do that. So if we make English the official language does that mean we are going to start teaching English in our class rooms that most people know anyways? Or are we going to just stop teaching other foreign languages?
I think there needs to be a diversity of languages in the U.S. like there already are. Making English the official language is only stating that it is the main language and most people should know how to speak it. I believe that there should be other languages in the U.S. as well, though we need to be unique and it is cool to know more than one language so if you go to another country you will be able to speak their native language as well.
So basically English should be the official language. Other languages should still be taught throughout our schools still today. It’s just a title really, and to be a unique culture other languages are good for us.


1-27-08
Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1) - Cite This Source - Share This
pain external image premium.gif external image thinsp.pngexternal image speaker.gif /peɪn/ - [peyn] - –noun
1.
physical suffering or distress, as due to injury, illness, etc.
2.
a distressing sensation in a particular part of the body: a back pain.
3.
mental or emotional suffering or torment: I am sorry my news causes you such pain.
4.
pains,
a.
laborious or careful efforts; assiduous care: Great pains have been taken to repair the engine perfectly.
b.
the suffering of childbirth.

5.
Informal. an annoying or troublesome person or thing.
–verb (used with object)
6.
to cause physical pain to; hurt.
7.
to cause (someone) mental or emotional pain; distress: Your sarcasm pained me.
–verb (used without object)
8.
to have or give pain.
—Idioms
9.
feel no pain, Informal. to be intoxicated: After all that free beer, we were feeling no pain.
10.
on, upon, or under pain of, liable to the penalty of: on pain of death.
11.
pain in the ass, Slang: Vulgar. pain (def. 5).
12.
pain in the neck, Informal. pain (def. 5).


[Origin: 1250–1300; ME peine punishment, torture, pain < OF < L poena penalty, pain < Gk poinexternal image emacracute.png penaltyexternal image thinsp.png]
—Synonyms 1–3. torture, misery, torment. Pain, ache, agony, anguish are terms for sensations causing suffering or torment. Pain and ache usually refer to physical sensations (except heartache); agony and anguish may be physical or mental. Pain suggests a sudden sharp twinge: a pain in one's ankle. Ache applies to a continuous pain, whether acute or dull: headache; muscular aches. Agony implies a continuous, excruciating, scarcely endurable pain: in agony from a wound. Anguish suggests not only extreme and long-continued pain, but also a feeling of despair. 2. pang, twinge, stitch. 4a. See care. 7. afflict, torment; trouble, grieve.—Antonyms 3. joy, delight. 7. please.

Online Etymology Dictionary - //Cite This Source// - Share This
pain (n.)
1297, "punishment," especially for a crime; also (c.1300) "condition one feels when hurt, opposite of pleasure," from O.Fr. peine, from L. poena "punishment, penalty" (in L.L. also "torment, hardship, suffering"), from Gk. poine "punishment," from PIE *kwei- "to pay, atone, compensate" (see penal). The earliest sense in Eng. survives in phrase on pain of death. The verb meaning "to inflict pain" is first recorded c.1300. Phrase to give (someone) a pain "be annoying and irritating" is from 1908; localized as pain in the neck (1924) and pain in the ass (1934), though this last may be the original, unrecorded sense and the others euphemisms. Pains "great care taken (for some purpose)" is first recorded 1528 (in the singular, in this sense, it is attested from c.1300); painstaking (adj.) is 1556 as paynes taking. First record of pain-killer is from 1853.


1-31-08
Please write up your "side" of the debate. First be sure to have a definition of "brute," then argue for that definition using the essay. It's good to find ways that both the patient and the doctor fit your definition, although one will fi the defintion more closely--or perhaps not at all.

My definition of "brute" is someone that acts mean and cruel. Someone that doesn't have ability to reason and acts like an animal. I think that the patient was the brute. He came off as a very angry man and he was very mean. He was so beastly that he drug 4 people behind him and he wasn't very nice. He was intoxicated and intoxication can make some people act like brutes. I'm not saying that he isn't a nice guy when he isn't drunk, but when he is drunk he isn't very nice. In the reading it says, "The man is hugely drink-- toxic, fuming, murderous-- a great mystic beast broken loose in the city, surprised in his night raid by a phalanx of lefionnaires armed with clubs and revolvers." He definately is acting like an animal in this statement which describes what I think a brute is. I think that he has definately been a brute more than just this once, at least the doctor felt bad about it and only did it that once, but it says, "He is scarred as a Zulu from his many battles. Almost from habit he ascends in combat." I think he is acting very brutish here. He is even described as being scarred from other battles. It makes me think of him more of a brute than the doctor. Like I said before the doctor at least learned from his mistakes and knew he did something bad. The guy seems to always have been doing something bad.

2-3-08

Pain
Pain can be an emotional distress, a physical hurt or disorder, a feeling that people try to avoid, or a great feeling. It can be perceived in many different ways. Some people may think of it as something simple such as getting a paper cut which would be a physical pain. In my life I have had many paper cuts and most don't hurt right when I get them, but then the day after it hurts every time I move my finger, it's like excruciating pain and it's not a very good feeling, it is very painful and I really hate getting them and I would really rather not slice my finger against a piece of paper just to get a paper cut so then I can have a very painful cut which is not very fun, it also seems that the tiniest cut hurts the most out of all of them, I mean I have had some larger paper cuts that don't hurt nearly as bad. Another physical pain would be when you break your foot. To many people that that has happened to, they might think that it is one of the worst pains in the world. It would be way more dramatic than a paper cut, they usually can't use the foot they broke for a while after it had happened, as to a paper cut you can normally suck it up and use your finger. When you break a foot it takes time for it to heal and while it is healing it usually gives you more pain than just the pain that happened initially when you broke it in the first place. More people I know have cried over breaking a limp rather than getting a paper cut. Which shows the idea that there are many different levels of pain. It is just how one precieves it and thinks about it.
Others may see pain as more complex than a paper cut such as emotional. Once my mom decided to get In Vitro Fertilization, which is where they take an egg from your ovaries out of your body and artificially inseminate it outside of the uterus, done. She was very excited about having more kids without having to go through the surgery of having her tubes untied so she had the In Vitro Fertilization done. So she went through all of the procedures and the thing that was the most painful to her was when she lost the triplets that she wanted to have so desperately. There were many different levels of pain leading up to that, but they were so different from one another. Such as the medication that she had to have injected through shots to get her hormone levels up to have the procedure done, the procedure to remove the eggs and the procedure to have them once again placed back into her body. She said that even giving birth to them wouldn't have been as painful as losing them. From what I understand giving birth is one of the worst pains as described by women.
Pain is something that some people try to avoid as well. Some are very afraid of pain therefore they don't put themselves in situations where they can be hurt and can feel pain. This can be the cause as to why some people won't date, they are afraid of rejection and/or the pain of someone dumping them that they have very deep feelings for. Also if they know they have put themselves in a situation that could go bad they may try to get themselves out of it before it hurts them even more. Pain that is avoided doesn't just have to be about dating it could also be about a family member that is very close to you. Many people hate the fact that when people grow old they eventually will pass away and some try not to show their pain when a loved one is taken from them. Over a year ago one of my grandparent's passed away and I didn't show any emotion which made me feel bad, but if I had shown it to my family they would have seen the pain that I have been through. Just avoiding it helped me get through it, now thinking about it, it isn't as painful as it once had been.
Some might not believe it, but pain could also be a good thing to some people. A great example of good pain would be someone getting a tattoo. Some seem to enjoy the excruciating pain of the needles full of ink being injected into their skin. I myself wouldn't find it enjoyable, but many do. They think it feels cool and they like when the needle comes in contact with their skin, while others cry at the first poke or even at the first sight of the needle itself. Another example of good pain would be when parents have to let their children go away to school, they know before they are even born that they have to give them up sometime. When their children go away to school it hurts them not knowing what is happening to their child every second of their day. They realize that their kid is finally growing up to become an adult, but it hurts them emotionally to let them go.
So as you can see pain can be all around us and looked at in many different ways. To one person it can be very differently defined as to another person. Whether it is emotional, physical, a feeling of avoidance or even good, it is all around us and people feel it every day. We just have to deal with the fact that pain is out there and it always will be. Also people have very different opinions about it. Pain to me can definitely be perceived way different from pain from another person.

Journal 3
2-5-08
When you wrote paper number two on the definition of a word, what specific argument strategies did you use? Why did you choose these specific strategies? Did you feel that they helped you organize your argument, or did using them make it more difficult for you to write? Why do you think this was so? How do you feel about your logos, pathos, and ethos in this piece?

When I wrote my paper on the definition of my word pain I decided to show that the word can be interpretated many different ways. I decided to show that the word pain could be good or bad, that it just depends on how the person preceives it. I felt that these strategies would work for my paper and I could explain my words using many examples to get the reader interested as well as show what my word was. Overall I think that my paper wasn't to bad to write, I just hope that it is good enough at explaining my word. I felt that it was organized giving many examples as how I saw it and many people saw the word pain. I hope I wasn't to jumpy throughout the paper and I think that it flows well. I think that my logos, pathos, and ethos all work. I have logic in the paper, such as how I thought about the word and preceived it. I have emotion in the paper by how I described some situations, and I think that the ethics of the paper aren't totally bad either.


Jennifer Wegner
Eng 101/ Wendt
2-17-08
Paper 3
I think that the Cheaters Amok essay was much more persuasive compared to From Honor Above All because of the good sense of logic and many examples given through out the essay, as well as appealing to my emotions. While reading both essays, I did notice some very good logic in them, yet the From Honor Above All easy it just didn’t cut it on the pathos.
In From Honor Above All (FHAA) they stated some facts about cheating such as, “According to a 2002 survey of more than 12,000 high school students by the Josephson Institute of Ethics, 74 percent admitted cheating at least once within the past 12 months (48 percent said they cheated at least twice).” (FHAA pg 106), but then they basically give their opinion when they say, “We are in deep trouble if young people maintain theses habits as the next generation of nuclear inspectors and airline mechanics, corporate executives and cops, journalists and generals, legislators and lawyers, and politicians and parents.” (FHAA pg 106) Are we supposed to believe them when they say that, they don’t give an example of why that is going to happen, or if it is even going to happen at all?
Throughout FHAA I found it quite boring without having any personal examples or examples from other people and it didn’t really appeal to my emotions that much. Then when I read Cheaters Amok, I realized that it was much more interesting with having real examples instead of listing just facts. Such as the example of, “Mary, a student at a large university in the South, said, ‘A lot of people think it’s like you’re not really there to learn anything. You’re just learning to learn the system.’” (Amok pg 108) This example actually let’s me know that real people do talk about the issue and not just state facts, they ask students their opinions on it, and if they do it or not. It is comforting knowing that there are people out there willing to admit to it, not just someone telling us facts about the topic hoping for us to believe them. I definitely was more persuaded through pathos after reading the Cheaters Amok essay. If FHAA did have some actually feed from students about the topic I would have probably been more persuaded towards their essay.
Both of the essays do have credibility, or ethos, but I think that Cheaters Amok definitely had more credibility seeing as they actually had real examples and not just stats, I’m more likely to believe them if there is a variety of examples showing all sides of the situation.

3-5-08
3 paragraphs of Paper Proposal
1. I would like to do mine on national healthcare. I'm not sure exactly what is going on with it, but I would like to find out more about it. I think that I would be for national healthcare. I'm not sure which candiadate is for national healthcare.

2. I might do global warming and how it is affecting the environment. I am for promoting to help protect the environment against global warming. I'm not totally sure as to what all the effects of it are, but I know it is bad for the ozone layer.

3. I might also be interested in doing aducation, to find out exactly what our schools are getting and what needs to be done to improve education. I would be for funding schools through the govenment.